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1500 questions
21
votes
7 answers

How to take a picture of a group with flash so that everyone's face is lit evenly?

A common situation in how I use my DSLR is to take a group picture at a badly lit location (think a table in a bar) with a flash. I have a flash that's pretty powerful even with a reflector and I have no issue with making everyone's face well lit,…
JonathanReez
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21
votes
3 answers

How can a smartphone take pictures of a landscape with everything in focus?

After the announcement of the new Samsung Galaxy S9 with the new camera that changes aperture, I caught myself wondering: if smartphones have such a wide aperture (f/2.8, f/2.2, etc), how are smartphones able to take landscape pictures, making…
paulovlobato
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21
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1 answer

If a photoshoot doesn't represent my best work, should I offer to reshoot?

I took family photos yesterday for a family, and while quite a few photos turned out, there were some that didn't. The natural light decreased more quickly than I expected, and some of the photos are noisy. Since some of the shots that didn't turn…
Amy
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21
votes
5 answers

What is a rolling shutter? When do I have to be aware of it?

In answer to another question, Adam Davis writes: Your camera complicates this by using a rolling shutter above a given speed (usually around 1/200. This means that only a portion of the image sensor is exposed to the scene at any given …
fmark
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21
votes
10 answers

How can a tripod be unstable?

This sounds like a fairly stupid question, but it is one that has arisen whilst I was looking for cheap (<£50) and lightweight (<1kg) DSLR tripods. I understand there's a price difference because of material/build quality, weight, height, and load…
adam
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21
votes
5 answers

What is the advantage of a digital still photo camera over digital video for nature photography?

I was recently watching a documentary on nature photographers and noticed that they frequently fired off dozens of frames in very rapid succession when taking their shots. They then indicated that they would go through their shots to find the…
DQdlM
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21
votes
4 answers

RAW files store 3 colors per pixel, or only one?

Ken Rockwell says that camera makers consider the individual R/G/B sensors when they talk about megapixels. So the image below would be a 6x6 pixel camera, not 3x3 as you would imagine. If that's true, a RAW file would contain only one color…
ariel
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21
votes
12 answers

What's the best way to create a tilt-shift photograph?

Specifically, what's the best way to go about shooting photos that have a fake miniature quality to them, which produces high-quality (and believable) images? Is there some special lens that you can shoot these kinds of photographs without resorting…
qJake
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21
votes
6 answers

What are the limitations of a typical kit lens as a general purpose lens?

I have a Canon EOS 550d with the 18-55mm IS kit lens. I have done quite a bit of shooting with it over the last few months (portraits, nature, night shots etc), and find the image quality to be pretty good. In fact most of the reviews have also been…
ab.aditya
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21
votes
5 answers

How do you make a shot look like it was taken at night?

Okay, so I was watching a movie recently, and there was a night scene. The whole valley could be seen in light, and there were some stars as well, and the actors could be seen, but it just looked like it was night. How do you make a shot look like…
PearsonArtPhoto
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21
votes
0 answers

Is Image Stabilization better in the lens or the body?

Possible Duplicate: What is the difference between in-lens image stabilizing and in-sensor image stabilizing? Some DSLR manufacturers have image stabilization (IS) in the body of their cameras, others sell (some) lenses with IS. Are there…
Hamish Downer
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21
votes
10 answers

How do I reduce noise, given that I have complete control over everything else?

I want to take some pictures of some crystals. Being crystals, they don't move around much so I can set up my camera and lighting as I like. I have a high-powered halogen light shining on them, and my camera on a tripod above them. When I took…
Andrew Stacey
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21
votes
5 answers

Where does the term "f-stop" come from?

Does anyone know the origins of the term?
Casebash
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21
votes
5 answers

How does a circular lens produce rectangular shots?

Is it something like the sensor captures a circular image and then what we get is the cropped version? Something like this: Or did I get it completely wrong?
Lazer
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21
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4 answers

How do I shoot birds against the sky to be faithful to their colour?

I have a Nikon D5300, and a host of hawks flying around near where I live. I have two lenses: an AF-S Nikkor 18-55mm VR (1:3.5-5.6GII), and an AF Nikkor 70-300mm (1:4-5.6G). The latter is excellent for zooming in, but it can't autofocus with the…
muru
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